West Virginia men’s soccer with a chance to make history starting tonight

West Virginia men’s soccer is very unfamiliar territory as they enter the final weekend of the season.

For the first time in the 63-year history of the program, West Virginia is one of the last four teams standing, hoping to come home with their first ever National Championship two games from now.

For the Mountaineers though, it’s about believing in themselves more than anything.

This time last year, West Virginia was sitting on their couch watching the NCAA Tournament take place. The Mountaineers finished 2022 7-7-4 following an NCAA Quarterfinal appearance in 2021.

“I’m incredibly proud of the players and what this group has been able to achieve. There’s no way we don’t believe. We were a .500 team last year that didn’t make the national tournament, and now we’re in the Final Four, so what is there to fear, what is there to lose,” West Virginia coach Dan Stratford said.

The Mountaineers have defended home turf en route to the College Cup. The Mountaineers have played in three NCAA Tournament games, earning a first round bye as the No. 5 overall seed and then beating Louisville, Vermont, and Loyola Marymount at home in consecutive matches.

The most recent came in a 3-1 comeback win over Loyola Marymount last Saturday, a match in which the Mountaineers went down early and then immediately had a response, before scoring twice more in the win.

West Virginia celebrates reaching the College Cup at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023
Photo by Aaron Parker

Clemson enters Friday night also as a national seed, but they have had a tougher road as far as matchups compared to the Mountaineers. The Tigers had to take down No. 9 New Hampshire and No. 16 Stanford, beating each 1-0 and 2-0 respectively to reach this point.

Clemson has a high powered offense, and a strong defense, as they lead the country in goal differential at +39, and also lead the country in goals scored with 57 on the year. West Virginia also brings in a good offense, ranking fifth in the country in goals scored, and they are ninth in goal differential.

“A team that has an abundance of quality depth, looks incredibly dangerous driving forward,” Stratford said of Clemson. “First impressions they are a very well rounded side. At this stage you’re going to have to play the best of the rest in the country and Clemson certainly looks like that.”

The Tigers have three common opponents to the Mountaineers — Louisville, South Carolina, and UCF. Clemson beat Louisville 5-1, and 4-0 in their two meetings, they beat South Carolina 2-0, and lost 2-1 to UCF. West Virginia beat Louisville 1-0 in the NCAA Tournament, and beat South Carolina 3-2 in the regular season and then played to a 2-2 draw against UCF.

“I think right now our. guys are just excited for the opportunity. Excited to get to Louisville, and looking forward to the capacity to showcase what we can do here at West Virginia,” Stratford said.

For Stratford and his team, the first goal was to get to this point. Now that they are here, he wants his squad to play loose and hopefully in 180 minutes of football, they are the last team standing.

“There wouldn’t have been many that circled us for a College Cup in 2023, we felt otherwise. We believed this was a part of our process and could be something we could achieve,” Stratford said. “As I said, it’s making sure we don’t rest on our laurels now and we really attack the game and the weekend with the intention of trying to win two more and bring home a national championship.”